'It reminds me of that day... Ah... I remember now...' Callahan thought, his mind elsewhere while the blazing light submerged his body in a storm of fire.
Callahan now stood on a rustic dock, his eyes wavering as he watched the golden light of the setting sun bathe upon this forgotten land...
"I'm sorry..." He eventually whispered, the glistening water below showing him what was once the most fateful of days...
It all came back as he lowered his body, getting as close as possible to the fleeting vision playing out before his very eyes...
His finger graced the gentle cold touch of the water... And light was that which replaced the entirety of his vision... A terribly blinding light, one that cemented nothing but unbridled fear in the hearts of Callahan and his fellow soldiers...
He braced, feeling his knees quiver under the immense force... His eyes burning as he could only watch his own demise in horror...
"CALLAHAN!" A familiar voice called out, the same voice that brought forth the shattering of the very ground below them... And before he knew it, a shield of immense might stood before the figure of Callahan's master...
"From this point forward..." Her weakened voice whispered under the might of &%$#*.
'That name?!' Callahan thought, feeling the presence of fate intercept the memory...
'Cursed Gods...' He snarled, watching paralyzed as his master bestowed leadership upon a lowly squire such as himself.
In truth... Callahan did not want to see the rest, as he already knew that the Valiant Legend known as Verys of House Durangor sacrificed her own life to protect the soldiers of her Squadron...
To this day... Callahan could not understand what force had led her to acting under that presence... Their fate had been sealed, and yet... Verys had blocked enough Radiant Light Energy to wipe out an entire continent...
The vision returned... Which was something that had not happened in the original memory.
Callahan grit his teeth as his blurry vision fixated on a silhouette at the center of the madness...
Suspended before the sun itself...
Constellations lit up the bright sky... Marking the sign of the shifting times... Marking Orion a changer of fate itself as his golden stature hovered with outstretched arms before the world itself.
In a fit of rage... Callahan stomped his foot into the ground, refusing to help his allies escape this time...
A metal spike shot from the ground, threatening to stop the ritual from commencing and cease what could have only been a path to Authority for the King of Suns...
But alas...
Callahan chose a bitter expression, watching as his powerful attack disintegrated under the light of Orion...
But in was in those fleeting seconds.
'This power...' Callahan thought, his body freezing over even with his countless years of experience backing his will completely.
It was then... At the heart of Vallmora... Under the convergence of a scale so large that every Kingdom in Vallmora and even those from beyond stood witness...
It was on that day...
That the Solar Pinnacle marked his reign upon the species of humanity...
Callahan stood horrified, feeling his eyes burn away from the sight of Orion's grand reveal...
A second sun... Burning three times as hot as the true sun... Blazing at the sky itself beyond Orion's arrogant figure.
"IT CANNOT BE!" Verys' dying voice cried out from beyond the light...
"STOP THIS AT ONCE ORION!" Another voice roared, his blade driving into the ground below what could only be assumed as a Greater God...
'The Grand Paladin!?' Callahan's once young figure fell to its knees, unable to resist the pull of conceptual energy...
But his eyes... Bore fixated on the sight that he never got to witness the first time around...
The source of that unmistakable power.
"Please... Show me!" Callahan screamed, his own skin ripping apart as the entirety of Orion's own kingdom began to tear itself apart...
The sun began to crack... Its inhumane energy causing something so catastrophic that even beings beyond Vallmora could only watch in anticipation...
No...
It was no sun...
Callahan let a bitter laughter escape his fading lips...
"Is this...
The curse of The Gods..." He laughed as what revealed itself to be not but a sun... But Orion's own Catalyst... Being so potent in potential and energy alike that it had surpassed his own body... It had grown to the size of a star... Rivaling the power of the Gods themselves... And forging the very moment when Orion... King of all Kings... Declared war upon the beings that predated humanity...
Orion's laughter mocked the masses, slaughtering the entire world over and over again as his catalyst shattered over and over...
It was...
Repairing itself... His own will... Was fighting against its very self...
Laughter echoed, and Orion's power bore so powerful that Eternity himself had intervened... Freezing time itself in order to counter Orion's ritual... But Callahan's gaze now stood ancient enough to grasp this... Peering through the clouds of Fate and gaining the honor to watch...
Orion destroy his own Catalyst...
An act that defied the Gods... It refuted them of their gifts... It denied their very existence even, the audacity to shatter one's own Catalyst...
'And so...' Hideous laughter echoed throughout the storm of fire that filled the crater.
'It was simply a paradox...' He laughed, feeling his own body burn alive under the familiarity of Orion...
"Its no use." He spoke, his voice rattling Jack to the very core...
It was that moment long ago... When he felt the presence of that which came before him... That which surpassed him...
He wanted to experience that again... And so he chased it, for decades upon decades... The newly appointed Head of House Durangor...
Neglected his duties as a leader... In the grand search for that of the Gods...
And it was only after his useless search when he met The King of Stars... The Grand Paladin of Vallmora... But he did not bare that title at this time... It was as if upon first meeting... That Callahan had noticed the crazed fixation born in the eyes of The Aries Prince...
He was strucken a deal...
A deal that would defy the Lesser gods while ignoring that of the higher powers...
Something that could close the gap between the Paladins and the strings that played them...
But there came a cost...
As all things do...
The Paladins were bound to a fate... Strung together by Eternity himself...
In the end... Callahan felt that there was no defying the Gods... That their powers simply surpassed that of reality itself... And so there was no point in running after something outside of your own universe.
But in the embers of battle... Far after The Golden Age's end... Callahan stood complexed... Burning under the heart of a thousand flames...
Had he given up?
A sinister grin merged with metal upon Callahan's ancient face as he allowed his own element to consume him... Although his Catalyst had long since surpassed that of his own body's scale...
He knew that it would never amount to the sight of that day...
The ground of the crater shook, and Callahan now hovered above Jack as thousands of spikes bursted forth from his own flesh...